Two days before the Emmy Awards, take a look at the Deggys

It’s the second most fun thing about this job, right behind the gargantuan TOLDJA SO! we delivered to NBC the moment Jay Leno’s 10 p.m. show imploded: Picking our own Emmy winners.

This hallowed space is reserved for what I would do if the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences were smart enough to turn over its awards show to a guy who has been watching them mostly get it wrong for more than a dozen years.

It’s time, once again, for The Deggys.

That’s right: I’m kicking over all the rules. No boundaries on when a show was supposed to air. I say what genre a show falls in. (which means, for one category, Glee is a drama; take that, Emmy academy).

Here are a few of my picks. Maybe next year, the Emmy folks will get wise and let me handle the big show.

Outstanding Lead Actress, Drama The Deggy Goes To: Katey Sagal of FX’s Sons of Anarchy. Sagal’s biker gang matriarch Gemma Morrow is tough enough to deliver a smackdown with a skateboard, then turn around and coddle her baby grandson. But last season she upped the ante, as Morrow was gang raped by neo-Nazis and kept it from her biker family for weeks (to keep them from rushing into a trap), eventually killing a woman involved in the incident. And it was all written by her real-life husband, the show’s creator. If Sagal was a TV-slumming movie star like Glenn Close, they’d be etching her name on a trophy already.

Outstanding Supporting Actor, Drama The Deggy Goes To: Mike O’Malley of Fox’s Glee. O’Malley’s good-hearted Burt Hummel has been an under-appreciated delight; a macho, working class hero struggling to understand his gay son Kurt’s emerging orientation on prime-time’s most gay-friendly show. The scene where Burt kicks football star Finn out of his house for using the three-letter f-word around his son — not realizing Finn was angry because he knew Kurt has a crush on him — should have earned a nomination instantly.

Outstanding Drama Series The Deggy Goes To: HBO’s Treme. A loving, detailed reminder of all that was lost and rebuilt in the wake of Hurricane Katrina’s flood, this amazing drama was a victim of America’s Katrina fatigue and Hollywood’s irritation with proud outsider David Simon. Like Emmy, I’m prone to award Deggys for passed opportunities missed, so this trophy also makes up for all the years Simon’s stellar police drama The Wire got snubbed.

Outstanding Lead Actor, Comedy - The Deggy Goes To: Ray Romano from TNT’s Men of a Certain Age. Romano has managed something Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Cosby and Tim Allen could not, instantly following his career-making hit sitcom with another TV success in TNT’s mournfully funny rumination on middle-aged maleness. And the hangdog comic’s own performance has been a revelation, nailing the pathos of a guy whose gambling addiction cost him his family, while delivering enough humor to make him appealing and — dare I say it? — charismatic. If Emmy wasn’t so hung up on handing Monk’s Tony Shalhoub another nod, Romano would have had it in the bag.

About the blog

The Feed is your source for television news, reviews and commentary. A group of Tampa Bay Times writers will blog about everything from their current TV obsessions to the changing TV/media landscape (binge-watching galore!). Let's all geek out over our favorite shows together.

As a wee TV fanatic, Times pop music critic Sean Daly first learned to tell time via Lee Majors classic "The Six Million Dollar Man." On family trips, instead of asking "Are we there yet?" he would inquire of his parents: "How many more Six's?" Thus, the concept of an hour. Adorable, right? Not nearly as cute: An adult Sean wears a Tigers hat not to support Detroit but because Tom Selleck wore one on "Magnum, P.I." It's sad really.

Michelle Stark is a Times writer, editor, designer and unabashed TV nerd. Her millennial TV-watching habits rely on Netflix, Hulu and Amazon instead of traditional cable, but she never misses her favorite shows, which include everything from Girls, Parenthood and New Girl to high-minded dramas like Mad Men and Homeland. She never met a reality dance show competition she didn’t like.

Sharon Kennedy Wynne is a Times writer and editor part of that first generation of toddlers raised on Sesame Street. Her TV tastes are eclectic. She's still a big fan of Sesame Street, but also darker fare like American Horror Story and Scandal. As our resident reality TV fan (though she's ashamed to admit it), she has complex theories on Survivor, Amazing Race and Big Brother strategies.